PARTY-LIST Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate of Bayan Muna on Tuesday sought a congressional inquiry into the attempted killing of anti-pork-barrel activist Dexter Ian Selebrado in Tagum City on September 29.
In filing House Resolution 1545, Zarate said Selebrado, a community organizer, was shot twice by men onboard a motorcycle as he was coming home from an interprovincial launch of the People’s Initiative to Abolish the Pork Barrel (Piap).
The resolution directs the House Committee on Human Rights to investigate not only Selebrado’s case but previous attacks and harassments on other activists involved with the anti-pork- barrel campaign.
Zarate said, “The attack on Selebrado is alarming not only as an event in itself, but as the latest in a series of attacks on activists. This is an attack on the movement to exercise the democratic right of all to the people’s initiative against pork barrel.”
Zarate was a human-rights lawyer in Davao before joining the 16th Congress as Bayan Muna representative. Selebrado sustained injuries in the nape and upper pelvis, and is in critical condition in an undisclosed hospital.
Various groups that participated in the Piap, which has been holding mass actions all over the country in the past months to gather at least 10 million signatures, have called upon the administration to investigate the attack.
Selebrado said he believed military agents were the assailants.
“We condemn this violent act and will push for the investigation and punishment of the perpetrators behind Selebrado’s attack,” Zarate added.